Disclosure

Wednesday, November 12, 2014

Review of "Wanna Be - When I Grow Up I Want to be a Firefighter"

Attention grabbing front cover

This week we had the pleasure of trying
out and reviewing the “WannaBe™-When I Grow Up I Want to be a
Firefighter” unit put out by The Old Schoolhouse Magazine. I received this product free for
the purpose of reviewing it for Schoolhouse Review Crew, however the opinions expressed are my personal,
honest opinions. The Old Schoolhouse's "Wanna Be - When I Grow up I want to be a Firefighter" can be purchased for $8.95 at this link.

This is
the first product I have used by The Old Schoolhouse and was very
happy with it. In the past I have read articles out of the magazine
but I was not aware of the fact they actually had unit studies for
purchase and can be purchased at The Old Schoolhouse Store.

We received the unit to review
and use on a Tuesday and I took the rest of the week to actually
sit and study the materials. The first thing I noticed is there's a
plethora of information put together nice and neatly in the 82 page
ebook with a table of contents that highlights topics for study. The
addition of the table of contents was very nice as most unit studies
that we have used in the past do not have one and I tend to have to
search for the page/topic we left off on. The table of contents
neatly corresponds with the page number of the start of each section
which makes it perfect for a not so organized mom like myself to go
straight the page I need and pick up where we left off.

Another thing to note right away,
before digging into the actual content was the bright colorful
picture on the front of the unit with six smiling firefighters. I
know they say “Don't judge a book by it's cover” but when you're
dealing with two first graders, sometimes the cover art is very
important. In this case, the picture was enough to grab my kid's
attention and provide a great conversation starter to bring us into
the lessons. I especially like the fact that there were firefighters
of both sexes shown so both Garrett and Ashleigh could have someone
to relate to. We were also able to incorporate the cover photo into
part of our discussion, as I will explain in a few.

As said, before sitting down and
starting this unit with my kids (both being 1st grade) I
took a few days to review the materials includes. There is a lot
included for the price ($8.95) and
you definitely get the bang for your buck. There are many activities
included to tie into the lessons such as a word find, a crossword
puzzle, mathematics problems, copy work and fill in the blank
vocabulary pages. Many of these pages I could tell would be too
advanced for my kids but the introduction page does state this unit
is mostly geared for students ages 4-10 so I do think that some of
the activities would be better for students in higher grades (maybe
grades 4 or 5). Some of the main themes of discussion are the
history of firefighting, firefighting equipment, the requirements to
become a firefighter and how much they make, as well as information
in regards to building safety codes and technological advancements in
fire fighting such as the use of robots. Some of the more advanced
topics (such as about robots) also include ideas for science
experiments or projects to incorporate with the discussion.

I decided to present the material of this unit to my kids over the
course of three days and I found this to be a reasonable time frame
to cover almost all of what is included in the material on the level
appropriate for my kids. Much of the information presented also gives
a great platform for more independent exploration (and a bit of fun).
For example: during the topic of the history of the fire departments,
we talked about the “Bucket

Bucket Brigade of the Colonial Era

Brigade”. We were able to find a
great youtube video in regards to “Firefighting in the Colonial
Era” which showed the bucket brigade and we were able to easily
extend the discussion beyond what was covered and discussed how the
men were on once side of the line, the women and children on the
other and why that would have been (the full water buckets being
heavier and easier for men to handle). This also made for a great
“fun” activity as we compared an empty bucket to a bucket full of
water and the kids then pretended they were tossing the buckets of
water onto a fire. When talking about fire equipment, the kids got
to pretend they were firefighters in the front yard and battled a
“fire” with our garden hose. When discussing how the firefighters
live in the firehouse for 24 hours at a time and cook, clean and
sleep there, we also returned to our previous discussion on nutrition
and the food groups and talked about how the firefighters had to eat
healthy foods such as lots of fruits, vegetables and proteins in
order to stay strong to meet the physical needs of their job. Mom
also threw in some good ole pushups into the mix when talking about
the physical fitness standards and the daily training they needed.
And remember that cover photo? Well, after watching a video that
talked about the firefighter's gear, the kids learned to recognize
the Fire Chief and the Fire Captains by their helmet color so they of
course wanted to go back and see what color helmets the firefighters
on the cover were wearing and pointed out the Chief (the one holding
the white helmet).

Heavy Bucket of Water

While some of the topics we did skim
over as I felt it was a bit advanced for my kids, such as the
information about general salaries throughout the country, these
types of topics were very few and far between and I felt the kids
were able to grasp most of the material (at least on a basic level)
and they were able to

Putting out the Fire

answer most of the questions presented in the
quiz section of the unit. Overall, I feel this unit indeed provided
enough material to be considered enriching even at their younger age.
I also feel it is a great resource to visit later down the road as
they get older and could understand the more advanced ideas such as
wages and about the history of fire insurance and will try to return
to it again when they are probably around grade 5.

I do highly suggest that outside
material be used when using this unit with younger students. It is a
great platform on its own but using other resources such as youtube
videos or photos off the internet will really help to get the ideas
across, especially for younger students or those who learn more
visually then by being read to. Together we watched videos of “A
Day in the Life of a Firefighter”, videos of firefighters actually
battling fires, listened to fire truck sirens and looked at
photographs of the old horse drawn fire trucks which made what we
were talking about really click. There's also a great video of
Wilshire the fire dog (who's history is a point of discussion in the
unit) online as well.

Horse Drawn Fire Truck

Overall, I was very happy with the unit
and would definitely look into purchasing the other units of this
series in the future. (Other available units include A Doctor, A
Chef, A Missionary, and A Pilot among others). The material was
clear, concise and accurate and presented nicely in a format that is
easy to follow. With a bit of imagination, this unit could easily be
extended to cover a week or two by also incorporating activities from
other subjects, like we did with the discussion about the food groups
or physical fitness. I think when I revisit it, I might plan a small
obstacle course for the kids to run and pick up a firehouse cookbook
and let them prepare and eat like a firefighter.